A bomb-disarming robot rescued a pet bird named Tweety from a collapsed apartment building in Sydney, Australia. From the BBC News:

Tweety the cockatiel was stranded for two days after the building partially collapsed, undermined by a new tunnel.

No-one, including Tweety's owner Karen Bruce, was allowed into the building because police deemed it too dangerous.

But help came in the form of a remote-controlled robot, which emerged from the building carrying Tweety in her cage.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

I don't know much about this home-made motorcycle or the rider who appears on it in this photoseries: only that the bike is amazing, though likely not in possession of a world-class suspension, and the driver is a total Mad Max bad-ass. Link (via Make Blog)

The marker-clock affixes to your white-board, then the compass-arm draws a circle around it over the course of sixty minutes, in dry-erase marker. Link (via Make Blog)

There's a children's hospital in London that owns a weird, perpetual copyright in Peter Pan. That's right, instead of funding it through the NHS and traditional charity drives (the way all of Britain's other hospitals are funded), the UK government has opted to fund this one by giving it an arbitrary perpetual monopoly (perhaps they'll start funding my local Moorfield's Eye Hospital through a comparable monopoly -- I bet you could pay for a lot of eye surgeries if the hospital were given 50p every time someone used red paint -- or perhaps we could give them charge over internal combustion engines?).

Now this hospital claims that Google Print will harm children by depriving it of royalties that it uses to heal kids.

Nevermind the actual facts: Google Print will sell more copies of books in its index, thereby delivering higher royalties (where those books are bought in England -- sensibly, they are in the public domain everywhere else in the world). Nevermind that royalties on novels by long-dead authors are a dumb, inefficient way to fund a hospital in the first place (every school that pays monopoly pricing for its copies of Peter Pan drains the same general treasury that is lightened from funding the kids' hospital through the monopoly -- wouldn't it be cheaper to give the school and all Britons a break and use the savings to fund the hospital?).

The sheer intellectual dishonesty here is enough to sicken you. The googlephobes can't explain why the fair uses that will make Google Print possible are bad for writers, so they fall back on "Google kills kids" as a way of bypassing the intellect and going straight for the heart-strings. For shame.

Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity has received royalties from Peter Pan since 1929. An Act of Parliament, passed in 1988, extended the book's copyright indefinitely. If people stopped buying the book, and accessed it through Google's service, the hospital — which cares for seriously ill children — could lose millions of pounds.

A spokesman for Great Ormond Street said he hadn't had a chance to view the site yet but hoped Google would think twice before publishing the book. "I wouldn't be surprised if Google do this, but it will rob the hospital of a major core of its charity revenue," he said.

Link (via A Whole Lotta Nothing)

Update: Bill Thompson points out: "Project Gutenberg already has Peter Pan online as it's not copyright outside the UK. If Karen Gomm [the journo who wrote the ZDNET story] had thought about it for a moment she would have realised. I'm printing it even now just so I can deprive the little kiddies of a few pence!"

Clueless lawmakers in Westchester County have embarrassed themselves by proposing a law that would prohibit open WiFi networks, requiring even intentionally public networks to run an expensive, cumbersome server that would notify you of the terms of use. This supposedly is to secure the integrity of their cutomers' information, but the idea that lawmakers should be dictating which security measures to take (as opposed to punishing those whose security measures result in breaches of user information) is ridiculous. As this law demonstrates, few groups are less capable of understanding best security practices than small-town politicians.

The draft proposal offered this week would compel all "commercial businesses" with an open wireless access point to have a "network gateway server" outfitted with a software or hardware firewall. Such a firewall, used to block intrusions from outside the local network, would be required even for a coffee shop that used an old-fashioned cash register instead of an Internet-linked credit card system that could be vulnerable to intrusions...

According to the Westchester proposal, public Internet access sites also would have to post a sign saying: "You are accessing a network which has been secured with firewall protection. Since such protection does not guarantee the security of your personal information, use discretion." Violations of any part of the law would be punishable with fines of $250 or $500.

Link (via /.)

The Energy Fiend website -- a fan-site for energy drinks -- has a calculator into which you enter your weight and your favorite caffeinated beverage and it will tell you how many drinks you need to take before dropping dead. I don't know if this is accurate, but OTOH I don't want to drink 171 grande cappuccinos to find out. Link (Thanks, Bill!)

This gallery of tea-making machines from 1891 to 2004 is a fantastic tour through tea-obsessive tinkering past and present. Link (Thanks, Jim!)

Michael Geist, an articulate and accomplished Canadian copyfighting law prof gave a fantastic speech on the Internet and innovation and law at Access 2005 at the U of Alberta -- he's released it as an MP3. 11MB MPG Link (Thanks, Michael!)

An eccentric tech zillionaire has moved to a small rural NY town and is turning the whole place into a free WiFi zone. The article's great, though inexplicably, the reporter feel sthe need to point out that WiFi is "short for wireless fidelity." Of course, this isn't true (and what's more, even if it was, what would it help you to know that?)

Mr. Gerdes knew that Andesans already had exposure to Wi-Fi: Rosalie Glauser, the owner of the Slow Down Food Company here, has been offering it to customers since 2004. After he plugged a Linksys router and antenna into his Internet-equipped cable jack - provided by the phone company for $54 a month - he had an epiphany.

Soon after, he got a letter from the local library asking for a donation. "I like to give contributions that have an effect," he said. He had another router and antenna (about $100) delivered to the library, suggesting that they be plugged into its broadband connection, thus allowing visitors to piggyback free on its Internet service.

Link (Thanks, TPB, Esq.!)

Update: 30,000 or so people have written in to quibble over whether WiFi stands for wireless fidelity, pointing to the fact that the WiFi Consortium has decided to claim it does. It doesn't. WiFi is a pun, based on the contraction, "Hi-Fi," which stands for "High fidelity." WiFi "means" wireless fidelity the same way that "foo" and "bar" mean "f*cked up" and "beyond all recognition" -- e.g., not at all. WiFi is derived from high fidelity, but if WiFi *means* "wireless fidelity" then it means precisely nothing, because "wireless fidelity" is a nonsense phrase whose only meaning comes from the fact that you get a pun on "HiFi" when you shorten it.

Update 2: Glenn "WiFiNetNews" Fleishman sez, "Simpler: Wi-Fi is a trademark and thus can't mean anything that's not arbitrary in the realm in which the trademark is coined. Wi-Fi had to have no prior meaning, so it's de facto meaningless. The trade association wants you to think something, but I think we've had this discussion before about 'stands for.' I try to not explain Wi-Fi at all in my writing these days and usually get away with -- I write 'Wi-Fi wireless networking.'"

Update 3 Steve Stroh sez, "I ran this down too with Wi-Fi Alliance way back when, and the answer I got back then is that 'Wireless Fidelity' was created when they started getting barraged by writers whose editors demanded that all acronyms must be spelled out. They caved with the incredibly lame 'Wireless Fidelity'...BTW - WiMAX Forum learned from Wi-Fi Alliance's mistake and were ready when the question was asked - WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. (That's their story, and they're sticking to it.)"

Google has added "search by Creative Commons license" to its advanced search page! Mighty is my w00t! Link (via Lessig)

Stefan says: "Rob Cockerham's 'How Much is Inside' series once featured the aerosol novelty 'Silly String.' "Rob has just posted some correspondence with a former Marine Sargeant who describes how the stuff is used in the field:"

Silly string has served me well in Combat especially in looking for I.A.Ds., simply put, booby traps. . . . When you spray the string it just spreads everywhere and when it sets it lays right on the wire. Even in a dark room the string stands out revealing the trip wire.

Link

Jonathan Weber says: "This might be a little macabre for Boing Boing, but this is an incredible little story of a mountain lion that chased a cat up a power pole - and both ended up electrocuted and dead on the ground. The picture tells the end result. Figuring out what happened took a little forensics..." Link (photo may disturb feline-o-philes)

This is funny flash movie that puts Gov. Schwarzenegger in the role of Ernie as her walks down the street meeting an unsavory cast of right wing muppets.
Link (thanks, Shawn!)

Every photograph is improved when it includes a chimp in fancy clothes. Actually the rest of the photos in this Library of Congress collection are unbelievably cool, chimp or no chimp. There's a surprise behind every click.
Link (via )

Here are some very nice kids' books illos from the collection of children’s author Kathleen W. Deady. This Wildcat book cover is especially appealing.
Link (via Drawn!)

If you aren't getting rid of your possesions at the same rate you are acquiring them, your living space is getting more and more cluttered. Clutter depresses me. I love getting rid of junk. Here's a great column by Mark Morford of the SF Gate on the joy of de-gunking your pad.

The cure is simple, so graceful that it will make you feel lighter and healthier and good the minute you start, and of course you can start right now and you don’t even need any drugs or wine or nudity, though those always, always help.

This is what you do: You throw stuff out. You go through your closets and you fill up garbage bags and you even grab stuff you’ve clung to for years for no apparent reason, and you haul it all down to Goodwill or Salvation Army or (in the case of San Francisco) leave the usable stuff out in the street overnight and let the urban recycling phenomenon work its magic, as some lucky passerby scores your old futon and the three grungy frying pans you haven’t used since 1987.

Link (via 43 Folders)

Snip from "Forbes Fumbles the Blogosphere: Does an Attack on Bloggers Signal the Dawn of Blogosphere-Dominant Media?," an ABC News commentary by Michael Malone (who used to run Forbes' technology magazine, Forbes ASAP):

Let me make a prediction. Five years from now, the blogosphere will have developed into a powerful economic engine that has all but driven newspapers into oblivion, has morphed (thanks to cell phone cameras) into a video medium that challenges television news, and has created a whole new group of major companies and media superstars. Billions of dollars will be made by those prescient enough to either get on board or invest in these companies. At this point, the industry will then undergo its first shakeout, with the loss of perhaps several million blogs — though the overall industry will continue to grow at a steady pace.

And, at about that moment, Forbes will announce that the blogosphere is the Next Big Thing for investors.

Link (gracias, Antonio Delgado)

The president's words of praise for former FEMA director Michael Brown are immortalized in this mobile phone ringtone. Link, via John Borland's column. (Thanks, katrin)

A Flickr photo pool dedicated to wacky religious ephemera. Some items are obliquely erotic.

Link to pool

(Thanks, Brian Sawyer)

Previously on Boing Boing:

Awesomely weird Jehovah's Witness art

Our planet is presently orbiting through a cluster of space-stuff that may cause an unusual number of "nighttime fireball" sightings. If you are lucky enough to see one overhead tonight, don't expect it to look like this (or be as tasty).

Link.

Dear sweet mother of photons, do I ever want to get my paws on one of these. Link
(Thanks, Hal Bringman)

Declan McCullagh reports that an election-law aid for bloggers has been defeated in the House:

Democrats on Wednesday managed to defeat a bill aimed at amending U.S. election laws to immunize bloggers from hundreds of pages of federal regulations.

In an acrimonious debate that broke largely along party lines, more than three-quarters of congressional Democrats voted to oppose the reform bill, which had enjoyed wide support from online activists and Web commentators worried about having to comply with a tangled skein of rules.

Link to News.com story. Vote tally: Link. Text of bill: Link

Reader comment: Zach says,

You really need to take a look at the Slashdot thread... especially the top comment: Link. It would appear as though the Democrats voted against it because it could possibly make a loophole in campaign finance law. This omission suspiciously sways the story.

Reader comment: Matt Volk says,

Harry Reid was the original writer of the Online Freedom of Speech Act. This wasn’t a D v. R bill. See this post from Kos: Link

.

Noah Shachtman at Defensetech blogs, "[S]onic weapons are slowly starting to be used by the American and Israeli militaries to disperse crowds with defeaning noise. But here's a tactic in the sound war that I hadn't heard of before: Israeli jets, letting off sonic booms over the Gaza strip."

Snip:

The removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip opened the way for the military to use air force jets to create dozens of sonic booms by breaking the sound barrier at low altitude, sending shockwaves across the territory...

Palestinians liken the sound to an earthquake or huge bomb. They describe the effect as being hit by a wall of air that is painful on the ears, sometimes causing nosebleeds and "leaving you shaking inside."

The Palestinian health ministry says the sonic booms have led to miscarriages and heart problems. The UN has demanded an end to the tactic, saying it causes panic attacks in children.

Here's the rest of Noah's post.

This BBC article -- Medics condemn Gaza sonic booms -- reports objections by the United Nations and medical groups.

Kathryn Cramer asks, "I wonder if some of the same effects mentioned in that article also are likely from 'Sonic Blasters'?"

Previously on Boing Boing:

Xeni on NPR, CNN: Sonic Weapons in Iraq -- and now, US cities

Wired News story "Sonic 'Lasers' Head to Flood Zone"

Reported presence of long-range acoustic device (LRAD) at protests

Reader comment: Tijl says,

This has actually been a common tactic by the Israelis for a long while, mostly in the neighbouring country of Lebanon. This includes mock divebombing runs, and sometimes even firing live ammo. There's also the danger of windows being blown out. And I must say, even if you're on the other end of a phone somewhere in another country, it still scares the shit out of you. Let's not forget that Israel has a track record of actually hitting a lot of targets there as well.

One might wonder what Isreali jets were doing flying over another country in the first place, but this was so common usually it'd only lead to to small news snippits when it was more intense than usual (you really don't need an alarmclock in such weeks, actually like now the holidays seemed to have a special intrest). Oh, and sometimes another UN resolution, for the already impressive stack Israel keeps in a desk somewhere, saying it's really *really* naughty to do that.

Example of a link reporting this from 1998: Link

I guess they had those jets just standing around now, looking for something to do.

Link
(NSFW/sexually explicit; Thanks, quickie!)

Over at Cryptomundo, BB pal Loren Coleman posts about Strange Wilderness, a forthcoming cryptid-themed TV show starring Steve Zahn and Allen Covert. From Loren's post:

Look for Bigfoot hunting to be the next wave in fictional television productions. First out of the gate: "Strange Wilderness" in 2006. The show would join the growing ranks of new television series with cryptozoological themes, like "Surface" on NBC-TV.

The plot for "Strange Wilderness" has two "animal enthusiasts" heading to the Andes in search of Bigfoot to boost the ratings of a show in trouble, which, of course, is named "Strange Wilderness."

Perhaps someone has done a bit of research for this one. The Andes do harbor a Bigfoot-type creature like our North American Bigfoot. In fact, the South American variety in the Andes looks exactly like Bigfoot in the USA and Canada.

Link

Responding to my sword swallowing post today, DJ Vollkasko says:

Allow me to point you to "Miracle Mongers and Their Methods" by Harry Houdini from 1920. (Project Gutenberg version available here sans illustrations.)

There you'll find fireeaters, heat resistors, strong men and of course sword swallowers. Some of the illustrations are incredible, as is the story of the sword swallower whose blade broke after being swallowed... This veritable queen of her trade kept her calm and saved herself. How? Well, read for yourself.

For all users of the Apple MessagePad or eMate (there still may be some amongst the BoingBoing readership--I know of at least three ;=} ), I have recently released ebook versions of this wonderful book.

Stephen Worth says: "ASIFA-Hollywood has a program to restore classic cartoons, not just for release on home video, but in the original theatrical format so they can be seen on the big screen the way they were intended to be seen. People can contribute to "Adopt A Cartoon" in danger of being lost to film deterioration. One of the films ASIFA had a hand in restoring hasn't been seen much outside of the UCLA Film & Television Archives and at festivals. It's called "Swing, You Sinners" and it's probably the most mindbending cartoon ever made. Just when you think it can't get any weirder, or any better, it gets a whole lot better and a whole lot weirder. Check it out.... There are frame grabs and a Quicktime movie on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive site."
Link

According to a study by a Griffith University dietitian Ben Desbrow, there's a tremendous variance in the caffeine content in consistently-sized shots of espresso from different coffee shops. From ABC News Online:

"The range was 25 milligrams to 214 milligrams, which was far greater than we'd anticipated.

"What our data led us to believe was that you really didn't know what you were going to be exposed to in terms of the caffeine content."

He says that means some single coffees contain more than half the daily amount of caffeine that is considered safe to drink without any side-effects.

Link (via Fark)

UPDATE: Dru Sefton points us to an article she wrote about a similar study done in the US in 2003. Link

A tooth that was allegedly yanked from Napoleon Bonaparte's pie hole will go up for auction next week at the Dominic Winter auction house in Swindon, England. It's expected to go for £5000-7000. From the auction catalogue:

An upper right permanent canine tooth, believed to have been extracted from Napoleon's mouth by his St Helena physician Barry O'Meara, 1817, the tooth well worn and sl. cracked, brown stain to root, approx. 25 mm, glued lengthways to a piece of card with a biro inscription [in Cecilia Laura White's hand], loosely contained in a small old glazed casket with gilt trim and legs and hinged lid, together with a soiled and damaged card of the tooth's provenance dated 1890 and written by the above-mentioned Cecilia White's mother Cecilia Montagu, plus an engraved brass name plaque of Francesco Maceroni, a further note of provenance in Cecilia White's hand and a photocopy of provenance in the form of a family tree, also in the hand of Cecilia White, dated 15th September 1962, with an additional note by the current owner...

Dr Alexander Baxter, Lowe's deputy inspector of hospitals on St Helena, also notes this extraction in a letter of 17th November 1817: "I have the honor to inform your Excellency that Napoleon Bonaparte suffered a good deal from Toothack on the night of the 15th instant, and in consequence was at last induced to permit Mr. O'Meara to extract the dent sapientie of the right side of the upper jaw. This is the first surgical operation that has ever been performed upon his body. The tooth was carrious in two places."

Link to auction catalog (the tooth is lot #431), Link to Ananova article, Link to BBC News article (Thanks, Julia Solis!)

In this week's issue of the British Medical Journal, radiologist Brian Witcombe surveys the medical risk of sword swallowing. (Previous BB post about sword swallowing here.) From the short journal paper:

Sword swallowing is not an illusion but, unlike in normal swallowing (when the tongue pushes the bolus up against the palate with the neck in a neutral position), the back of the tongue is pushed forwards and the neck hyperextended. Repeated practice enables suppression of the gag reflex. The pharynx is thrust forward and the cricopharyngeus relaxed. The sword may be passed after deep inspiration with the pharynx filled with air—one practitioner describes "sucking in" rather than swallowing the sword. Once past the pharynx, the lubricated sword is swiftly passed, straightening the distensible and elastic oesophagus. Gravity helps, for the performer is always upright.

The sword passes within millimetres of the heart, aorta, and other vitals but, surprisingly, few deaths related to sword swallowing have been described. A Canadian sword swallower did die, but that was after swallowing an umbrella. Another performer fell from the stage with the sword in situ, and was immediately taken for an x ray but remained unscathed. One amateur attempted to swallow a 90 cm blade while under the influence of alcohol and was said to have lacerated his oesophagus and punctured his lung, but the outcome is not known.

Link

Here's the abstract on a recently-applied-for and utterly Onion-esque patent titled, Process of relaying a story having a unique plot. It was granted to plotpatents.com.

A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters comprises: indicating a character's desire at a first time in the timeline for at least one of the following: a) to remain asleep or unconscious until a particular event occurs; and b) to forget or be substantially unable to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time until a particular event occurs; indicating the character's substantial inability at a time after the occurrence of the particular event to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time to the occurrence of the particular event; and indicating that during the time period the character was an active participant in a plurality of events.

via Groklaw, who says,

They have at last invented a way to destroy all cultural development forevermore. That's an achievement of a sort. (...) Remember, a published patent means it hasn't issued yet. But if you wish to throw up, read about the dreams being dreamed. They are willing to destroy the world's culture for $67,200. Here's Knight and Associates' legal analysis, which they are probably proud of. To me, it's like figuring out how to destroy the planet and all human life on it. What is your responsibility? To implement it, to even tell anyone what you cleverly invented? I know. Knight and Associates would advise patenting it first.

Link

Reader comment: Jim's Polka says:

No patent has actually been granted. So far, he's filed a provisional application for a patent and a non-provisional application. Now that it's been 18 months since he filed the application, the PTO has published it, i.e. made it publicly available. Groklaw, like Slashdot did yesterday, made a mistake in their headline that implied that the patent had already been granted. She does, however, note in the third paragraph that the patent hasn't been granted yet.

As for me, I'm with Groklaw - I'm not persuaded by their legal analysis. But it's too early to get upset with the PTO or the patent system about this. The PTO hasn't even had the chance to reject it yet. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind smacking the idiot who filed the application.

Remember, this is all based off of this guy's press release. I think he's taken advantage of people's prejudices about the patent system to earn himself some easy publicity.

And Stephen Bruce Lindholm says,

Most patent applications are published after 18 months. Knight & Assocs. want to make a business of filing "plot patents." This is their test case, which is why these crackpots are willing to waste a lot of money on it. If they do succeed (in my view, they certainly will not) it would certainly lead to Congressional action to cut back the patent system.

Reader comment: Cheesedog says,

Since this was a provisional patent application, and according to the American Inventor's Protection Act (AIPA), Knight and his buddies can now -- as of yesterday -- extract reasonable royalties from any infringers. Right to Create has the details. Let the litigation begin!

Forget what those scientists say, we have the real thing right here: Link. And it's been on the internets for years.

Previously: Mice sing for sex

Link to photos by Clayton James Cubitt.

Washington University researchers have discovered that male mice serenade females in ultrasonic songs. When lowered in frequency so humans can hear them, the vocalizations sound like birds whistling. The mice were spurred to sing with the scent of female urine. From Scientific American, where you can also hear a recording of a mouse song:

Although humans have long been listening to the serenades of birds and whales, among other animals, mouse songs have fallen on deaf ears for the past several decades, because they are out of the range of human hearing. When (scientist Timothy E.) Holy and co-author Zhongsheng Guo started taping the ultrasonic utterances of 45 male mice, they quickly found that the high-pitched sounds exhibited repetitive phrases, or motifs, that varied over time but that were repeated with some regularity. In short, they qualified as songs...

Although the lovestruck mouse's repertoire cannot compete with that of an adult canary, the singing of mice does offer an opportunity to potentially study the genetics of song learning, especially if mice learn from a "tutor" as many birds do. And the wild cousin of the lab mouse just may possess an even wider range. "Domestication has changed many aspects of mouse behavior," Holy remarks. "It would be intriguing to find out if [wild mouse] songs are more or less birdlike than the lab mouse songs."

Link

UPDATE: BB reader Radagast says, "The original journal article was published in PLOS Biology, a creative-commons licensed journal. Along with the full text of the article, the website also has a number of (also creative-commons licensed) audio files featuring the singing mice." Link

RU Sirius interviews Burning Man's Maximum Leader, Larry Harvey, this week. Here's a snippet from the interview:

Larry Harvey: Sometimes all you do, as a leader, is pay a great deal of attention to the nature of what the experience evokes, and then you try to articulate it at that moment when they feel it. It's just like a good music track in a movie. A really good music track doesn't tell you what to feel. It expresses what you feel half-a-beat after you felt it.

Link

It's happened to all of us more times than we care to admit -- getting locked in the trunk of a car. Sure it's embarrassing, but until now, there hasn't been an easy way to solve the problem, except by screaming and kicking the sides in the hope that someone will hear you and let you out before the air becomes poisonous.

In recent years car manufacturers have provided trunk release tabs so we can let ourselves out, but there were two problems with the early tabs. One, they used words to instruct those trapped inside on what to do, and two, the trunk of a car is pitch black when the door is closed. If you had a pair of night vision goggles on but happened to be illiterate, the tab would be of no help. If you could read, but weren't wearing night vision goggles, you were still out of luck. Only those who could both read and happened to be wearing a pair of night vision goggles at the time they fell into the trunk could be expected to free themselves.

The new Ford Focus has solved both of these problems with an ingenious pull tab that glows in the dark and has an easy-to-comprehend symbol. This is progress at its best.
Link

UK researchers took daily photos of 59 women over a course of six weeks, measuring and recording their estrogen levels each day. They then created two composite photos, one composed of 10 pictures of the women on the days of highest estrogen levels, and the other on the days of the lowest levels. Can you guess which picture is which?

So should 13-year-old girls be given doses of oestrogen in the hope that they will grow into more beautiful women? “Absolutely not,” Law Smith says. “It certainly may make them more attractive, but who knows what other effects the hormone may have?"

Of course there may be an easier way - faking it. A further study by Law Smith's group found that when women wore make-up the correlation between perceived attraction and oestrogen levels was completely masked, because make-up improved appearance.

Link (Thanks Elias!)

Reader comment: Auna says: "In the post about hormone levels on boingboing, you say 'They then created two composite photos, one composed of 10 pictures of the women on the days of highest estrogen levels, and the other on the days of the lowest levels.' In the article at NewScientist, it says 'One composite was an amalgamation of the 10 women with the lowest peak-oestrogen levels, while the other image was a combination of the 10 women with the highest levels.'"

"I don't mean to sound nitpicky, but it isn't actually the same 10 women at different points in their menstral cycle. It is 20 different women, 10 with high estrogen levels and 10 with low estrogen levels. I only bring it up because I was amazed that there could be such a noticable difference in the appearance of the *same* women when their levels of estrogen fluctuated, but when I read the article I saw that this isn't in fact the case. To me this makes the results of the experiment much more obvious: women with naturally high estrogen levels are perceived as 'more attractive.'"

Scott Beale says: Robert Williams, infamous lowbrow painter and founder of Juxtapoz Magazine, is currently touring the West Cost in conjunction with his new book Through Prehensile Eyes: Seeing the Art of Robert Williams, which is published by Last Gasp and features his 58 most recent paintings.
Link

Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez are two of my favorite comic artists of all time. From November 7 to December 3, Pasadena City College Art Gallery near Los Angeles is presenting a retrospective of their work, "Love and Rockets: the Comic Art of Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez." The reception for the artists is Thursday, November 17, 6-8pm. I've had the opportunity to meet Gilbert and Jaime a couple of times and they were very nice, modest, and seemed genuinely happy to talk to their throngs of admirers (myself included). This retrospective should be incredible. From the exhibition page:

Raised in the multiethnic farming and beach community of Oxnard, California, each of the Hernandez brothers creates innovatively designed comic stories noted for their epic scope and depth of characterization, and for their embrace of subcultures that had rarely if ever been previously depicted in comics. Their works feature complex female protagonists, Latin American families, Southern California punk rockers, and a gallery of fully realized characters who matter-of-factly reflect diverse ethnic backgrounds, sexual preferences, and economic classes.

“Love and Rockets broke new ground for comics in both content and form… revitalizing long-form comics with new themes, new types of characters, and fresh approaches to narrative technique,” writes comics scholar Charles Hatfield, in his book Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (University of Mississippi Press, 2005). The first series of Love and Rockets extended fifty issues before concluding in 1996. In 2001, the brothers revived Love and Rockets in a smaller format; fourteen issues of the second volume have been published to date by Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, Washington. Fantagraphics has also published massive hardcover collections of their major continuous storylines, Palomar (2003) by Gilbert Hernandez and Locas (2004) by Jaime Hernandez.

Link (via Flog!)

According to a survey conducted by Conchango, six percent of people in the UK say that someone they know has shopped online while undressed. Apparently, a growing number also do their online shopping drunk. From The Register:

The research shows a rise in a new spending syndrome dubbed BLOTO, or Buying Loads Of Tat Online, with seven per cent of Britons now claiming they know someone who has gone shopping on the web for items they don't need whilst intoxicated.

"These findings throw a new light on internet spending and pose a number of questions for retailers as they develop new online products and services," said Paul Dawson, head of customer experience at Conchango.

Link (via Techdirt)

MyPetZombies are life-sized, incredibly gross latex zombie mannequins. Like a Realdoll, except more fun and about 10 percent of the price. Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

Pat Schroeder and Bob Barr published "Reining in Google", a fantastically disingenuous op-ed in today's Washington Times, in which they excoriate Google for planning to rescue books from the scrapheap of history by making them Web-searchable just like all the other information that most of the info-consuming world cares about.

On Forbes, Nick Schulz responds with an op-ed of his own, "Don't Fear Google," in which he masterfully deconstructs Schoeder and Barr's crazy-talk:

Pat Schroeder, the former Congresswoman from Colorado is now the president of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and a vigorous opponent of Google's plan. She is also an author. I went to Amazon and searched in her book 24 Years of House Work and Still a Mess for the word "property," and Amazon's technology found for me on page 286 the following snippet:

"Protecting intellectual property is my main focus at AAP. Technology has made it so easy to copy anything you create ..."

She's right about technology. However, my finding that snippet and using it for this article is not a copyright violation. I didn't ask Schroeder or her publisher for permission to use the quote in her book. Indeed, there's an entire industry, book reviewing, predicated on the ability of people to do something similar to what I've just done.

Link (via Copyfight)

The Wovel is a snow-shovel integrated with a giant wheel that makes it easier to scoop, move and dump snow. Growing up in Toronto, I shovelled my fair share of snow. It's hard, dangerous, unpleasant work. If this thing works, it'd be a life-saver. Link (via Gizmodo)

Here's a set of simple instructions for making this striking doormat crafted from smooth river stones:

First, I poured out all the rock on the back patio and rinsed them off and let them dry for a day.

Second, I took a roll of that rubber shelf liner stuff and cut it to the size that I wanted.

Third, I started scavenging through all the rocks to find ones that fit together in a cool pattern. It took a while, but I got them all situated. We bought two bags just so that we could find all the 'perfect' rocks.

Link (via Crib Candy)

This luminous, foot-high jellyfish tank (with real fake jellyfish) is intended as a desk-accessory; it cycles through different colored LEDs and costs $120 or so. Link (via Gizmodo)

Update: Phil sez, "It's not likely that a setup like that would allow the jellyfish to live more than a month or two (if that). A proper environment for jellyfish would require a much more expensive setup than can be obtained for $120 - more like $1200. Living things should not be abused for entertainment in some desktop executive toy."

Update: Bill sez, "the jellyfish tank has silicone jellyfish in it, not live jellyfish. (Which is a shame, as I've always wanted a pet jellyfish.) Google translate of the source page confirms."

Len, a podcaster and cartoonist, went in search of Bill Watterson, the elusive creator of Calvin and Hobbes, in his hometown of Chagrin Falls. He found Watterson's mother, who granted him a charming interview about Bill, his childhood and his art. Link (Thanks, Len!)

This guy made a $47, 30,000 calorie sandwich, documented it, then ate it.

Food ------------------------ Calories
Fried Mushrooms – 15 -------- 450
Bacon – 14 pieces ----------- 990
Onion rings – 18 ------------ 1140
Ground Beef – 1/4 lb. ------- 293
Corndogs – 2 ---------------- 540
Swiss Cheese – 4 slices ----- 425
Provolone Cheese – 4 slices - 397
Cheddar Cheese – 4 slices --- 455
Sliced Ham – 1/4 lb. -------- 184
Sliced Turkey – 1/4 lb. ----- 181
Pastrami – 1/4 lb. ---------- 394
Sliced Roast Beef – 1/4 lb. - 200
Bratwurst – 1 --------------- 510
Braunschweiger – 1/4 lb. ---- 580
Wheat Bread – 1 lb. --------- 1030
Lettuce – 1/2 head ---------- 25
Feta Cheese – 4 oz. --------- 350
Italian Salad Dressing – 6 oz 480
Oregeno – 50 grams ---------- 438
Salt & Pepper – 50 grams ---- 0
Butter – 1/2 lb. ------------ 1600
Parmesan Cheese – 100 grams - 465
Canola Oil – 154 Tbsp. ------ 18,432
Total ----------------------- 29,559

Link (via Kottke)

Update: Here's the original page for the sandwich; however be warned that some report this page attempting to install malware on their computers. I don't use an OS or a browser vulnerable to this, so I can't confirm it. (Thanks, Andy!)

Artist Jason Chase alerted us that one of his paintings was used by the photoshopper who did the game sanitization parody Cory posted earlier today. I checked out Jason's site, and his oil paintings of Weebles are incredible! "Clown Weeble," shown here, measures a mind-bending 55" X 42".
Link

The emails former FEMA head Michael Brown wrote during the Katrina crises would be really funny, if not for the fact that his mismanagement needlessly ruined the lives of so many people. OK, even then, they're still funny.

"Can I quit now? Can I come home?" Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane.

A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now, please rescue me." "In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics," including "problems finding a dog-sitter," Melancon said.

Melancon said that on August 26, just days before Katrina made landfall, Brown e-mailed his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?"

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."

Link (thanks, Jeff!)

Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft, have deployed spyware to catch "cheaters." If you want to avoid the spyware, you can install Sony's rootkit DRM (just load a store-bought CD with Sony's DRM on it) and then use its cloaking capabilities to hide your WoW app:

World of Warcraft hackers have confirmed that the hiding capabilities of Sony BMG's content protection software can make tools made for cheating in the online world impossible to detect. The software--deemed a "rootkit" by many security experts--is shipped with tens of thousands of the record company's music titles.

Blizzard Entertainment, the maker of World of Warcraft, has created a controversial program that detects cheaters by scanning the processes that are running at the time the game is played. Called the Warden, the anti-cheating program cannot detect any files that are hidden with Sony BMG's content protection, which only requires that the hacker add the prefix "$sys$" to file names.

Link (Thanks, Markus!)